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FRED: Now for the pirates' lair!
Oh, joy unbounded!
Oh, sweet relief!
Oh, rapture unexampled!
At last I may atone, in some slight measure,
For the repeated acts of theft and pillage,
Which, at a sense of duty's stern dictation,
I, circumstance's victim, have been guilty!
KING: Young Frederic!
FRED: Who calls?
KING: Your late commander!
RUTH: And I, your little Ruth!
FRED: Oh, mad intruders,
How dare ye face me?
Know ye not, oh rash ones,
That I have doomed you to extermination?
KING: Have mercy on us;
Hear us, ere you slaughter.
FRED: I do not think I ought to listen to you.
Yet, mercy should alloy our stern resentment,
And so, I will be merciful. Say on!

RUTH: When you had left our pirate fold,
We tried to raise our spirits faint,
According to our custom old,
With quip and quibble quaint.
But all in vain the quips we heard,
We lay and sobbed upon the rocks,
Until to somebody occurred
A startling paradox.
FRED: A paradox?
RUTH: A paradox,
A most ingenious paradox!
We've quips and quibbles heard in flocks,
But none to beat this paradox!
ALL: A paradox, a paradox,
A most ingenious paradox!
Ha! ha! ha! ha!
Ha! ha! ha! ha!
This paradox!

KING: We knew your taste for curious quips,
For cranks and contradictions queer;
And with the laughter on our lips,
We wished you there to hear.
We said, "If we could tell it him,
How Frederic would the joke enjoy!"
And so we've risked both life and limb
To tell it to our boy.
FRED: That paradox?
KING: That paradox,
That most ingenious paradox!
We've quips and quibbles heard in flocks,
But none to beat that paradox!
ALL: A paradox, a paradox,
A most ingenious paradox!
Ha! ha! ha! ha!
Ha! ha! ha! ha!
That paradox!

KING: For some ridiculous reason,
to which, however,
I've no desire to be disloyal,
Some person in authority,
I don't know who,
very likely the Astronomer Royal,
Has decided that,
although for such a beastly month
as February,
twenty eight days as a rule are plenty
One year in every four
his days shall be reckoned
as nine and twenty.
Through some singular coincidence,
I shouldn't be surprised
if it were owing to the agency
of an illnatured fairy,
You are the victim of this
clumsy arrangement,
having been born in Leap Year,
on the twenty ninth of February,
And so, by a simple arithmetical process,
you'll easily discover,
That tho' you've lived twenty one years,
yet, if we go by birthdays,
you're only five and a little bit over!
KING & RUTH: Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!
Ho! ho! ho! ho!
FRED: Dear me! Let's see!
Yes, yes; with yours my figures do agree!
KING & RUTH: Ha! ha! ha! ha! Ha! ha! ha! ha!
FRED: How quaint the ways of paradox!
At common sense she gaily mocks!
Though counting in the usual way,
Years twenty one I've been alive,
Yet, reck'ning by my natal day,
Yet, reck'ning by my natal day,
I am a little boy of five!
KING & RUTH: He is a little boy of five!
ALL: Ha! ha! ha! ha!
Ha! ha! ha! ha!
A paradox, a paradox,
A most ingenious paradox!
Ha! ha! ha! ha!
Ha! ha! ha! ha!
A paradox,
Ha! ha! ha! ha!
Ha! ha! ha! ha!
A curious paradox!
Ha! ha! ha! ha! Ha! ha! ha! ha!
A most ingenious paradox!

By Arthur Sullivan
Generated by NoteWorthy Composer

Pirates Nos 18 & 19
Lyrics
Ruth
Frederic
King
Piano Right
Piano Left
Tempo Track